This disclosure generally relates to communication networks and, more particularly, to a multi-user interactive communication network environment that allows multiple users to communicate with each other and/or the environment in real time through an input device such as a keyboard, a mouse, a microphone (in a speech recognition based environment), etc.
In recent years, following the development and spread of computers, there have been increasing opportunities for users to interact with each other in real time via a communication network. However, this real-time transmission of information (e.g., text, images, and audio) is inherently unsafe. As an example, it is quite easy for one user, e.g., at a computer terminal, to initiate communication with another user, e.g., at a separate computer terminal, for extracting information by posing a series of questions. Specifically, in one instance, an individual could extract key information, such as home-address/phone-number/school-information, from a child or minor.
Another problem that is typically experienced among users in an interactive multi-user environment is the ability for one user to initiate communication with another user in the same environment at any time. As an example, in a multi-user chat room, user X may initiate chat with another user Y by sending a text message before obtaining permission from user Y to initiate chat. This is a serious problem, especially, when user Y is a child and the chat initiator (i.e., user X) has illegal motives.
Furthermore, in the communication environment, much of the communication between users and the environment is done by typing text messages. This can be a fairly difficult, slow, and a tedious process for users such as children, the handicapped, or people that simply cannot type (e.g., owing to skill, key size on the keyboard, or lack of keyboard access all together). Moreover, in such a communication environment there is no mechanism that guides the messaging interaction between users and the environment in a proper manner. As an example, in a gaming environment, the textual conversation between gamers, and/or between gamers and the game Artificial Intelligence (“AI”), can go from being coherent to fairly nonsensical. Specifically, if a gamer is provided with an ability to communicate with a non-player character (“NPC”) via text, there is a fairly high probability that the gamer will type arbitrary text messages in the text interface, thereby interacting incorrectly with the game AI.